GasBuddy News Article

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Fracking Tied to Unusual Rise in Earthquakes in U.S.

Bloomberg
--
A spate of earthquakes across the middle of the U.S. is “almost certainly” man-made, and may be caused by wastewater from oil or gas drilling injected into the ground, U.S. government scientists said in a study.

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey said that for the three decades until 2000, seismic events in the nation’s midsection averaged 21 a year. They jumped to 50 in 2009, 87 in 2010 and 134 in 2011.

Those statistics, included in the abstract of a research paper to be discussed at the Seismological Society of America conference next week in San Diego, will add pressure on an energy industry already confronting more regulation of the process of hydraulic fracturing.

doesn't take much if one understands just a bit about geology to realize the impact of high pressure water injection into deep earth layers. It's like CA except, pressure build up is man-made and more dangerous.

The liberal news/government complex likes to parade it's "experts" out in front of the public to push a pseudo-scientific agenda, in an attempt to shut down any energy production here in the United States. They want people who do not understand geology believe this fairy tale.

This is BS, earthquakes are caused by two or more plates in the earths crust moving and pressure generated between the two. When the pressure is too great one or both move violently and the result is an earthquakeA few (more) thousand gallons of water under the surface is not going to cause these plates to move and created a quakeWhat could possibly happen is the extra fluids could cause the plates to slip before adequate pressure has built and you have a small tremor or quakeSo what is more likely is fracking could reduce the chance of larger quakes by causing the early release of the built up pressure, before the pressure is great enough to cause a larger quake

Oklahoma gets one on a 2.0 - 3.5 on a regular basis.Awfully close to drilling area.Small quakes are in places that just so happen to be close to drilling areas.Hydraulic fracturing is also not safe to nearby residents.The natural gas industry lobby is powerful in Washington.We are inundated with commercials on television making natural gas look like a wonderful alternative to oil.

I doubt it will. Maybe if there's a really big quake that say, flattens Saint Louis, but that's still a maybe.

I was against fracking the moment I heard the word fracking. See on the new Battlestar Galactica the word frack (or fracking or fracker or fracked) is used just like a word that also begins with f and also ends with k, but if I used it here I would likely be in trouble. (I live in the USA, as far as swear words go, it is the Taliban of the West.)

Hopefully, you see the point that fracking with the earth is a bad idea.

It's not the fracking, it's the injection of waste water, especially if it's injected deeply into old rocks, which frequently have hidden faults. The problem can probably be avoided, but ignoring it isn't the answer.